The current understanding about the various meanings of the term and the concept of sustainability is perhaps one of the most heated debates in contemporary society, considering that the discussion about what means to be sustainable requires a minimum review of principles, practices and beliefs, and can counter immediate interests and generate disputes and conflicts. Society evolves realizing that if we keep current patterns of consumption, and the cultural and social replication of these patterns, natural resources will no longer be able to supply our demands. The assumptions of this relationship (inputs versus consumption), mainly by various economic theories, are not sufficient to find solutions within the current process of development of contemporary socities. The search for a point of stability – or what is called sustainability – came to include all activities and sectors of modern society, and in particular regarding to rural areas. In recent decades, the politics and dynamics related to rural areas have been strongly transformed. Both academy and society, in general, began to see study the rural areas with new meanings and functions, which in general are conflicting, but offer a wider range of opportunities for new interpretations. The aim of this study was to understand how the concepts and policies related to rural development is Brazil and the conservation and management of biodiversity evolved in the last three decades. Within this context the study was divided into five parts. The first three parts consisted of the construction of a conceptual and theoretical basis. For this, a large literature review was surveyed, in orders to build frameworks and to understand how new concepts have been incorporated into theories of development, thinking about the principles of sustainability. More than four thousand publications were analyzed to understand and describe the trends in scientific research bout rural development and public policies, concerning to biodiversity, in Brazil, and, also, how the scientific production has pointed out new paths for sustainable rural development in the country. Moreover, a study case was carried out, in an important rural area (Pontal do Paranapanema – SP), where elements of the current conflict between different models of agriculture and rural development have been illustrated. This study case confirms the hypothesis that current public polices, concerned to rural development, are confliting and contrary to the management and conservation of biodiversity.
